One of the most serious problems from an environmental standpoint is the damage caused by oil spills or other minerals which float on the water. The acuteness of this problem has resulted in intensive efforts to provide a satisfactory device generally referred to as an oil skimmer which will clean these impurities from the water surface. Exemplary approaches at such oil skimmers are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 61,880; 3,700,108; 3,708,077; 3,757,953; 3,804,251; 3,923,661; 3,957,646; 4,006,086; 4,033,869; 4,049,554 and 4,056,472.
It is highly desirable in cleaning such oil spills to provide a method and device which is not only of a simplified nature, but is so without sacrifice to its efficiency or without sacrifice to the wide variety of conditions both climatewise and geographically under which it may operate.